Free A Grain of Wheat by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o Page A

– throwing stones at my dog.’
    ‘No stones – I did not throw stones.’
    ‘The way you people lie—’ she said, looking round at the others. Then she turned to Karanja. ‘Didn’t I catch you holding a stone? I should have allowed him to get at you. Even now I’ve half a mind to let him—’
    At this point John Thompson arrived at the scene. The Africans gave way, Dr Lynd stopped admonishing Karanja and smiled at Thompson. Karanja raised his head hopefully. The other Africans looked at Thompson and stopped murmuring and mumbling. The sudden silence and the many eyes unsettled Thompson. He remembered the detainees at Rira the day they went on strike. Now he sensed the same air of hostility. He must keep his dignity – to the last. But panic seized him. Without looking at anybody in particular, he said the first Swahili words that came into his mouth:
    ‘I’ll deal with this.’ And immediately he felt this was the wrong thing to have said – it smacked too much of an apology. The silence was broken. The men were now shouting and pointing at the dog: others made vague gestures in the air. Karanja watched Thompsonwith grateful eyes. Thompson quickly placed his arm on the woman’s shoulder and drew her away.
    He led her through the narrow corridor that joined the library block and the administrative building, without knowing where he was going. Everything seemed a visitation from the past: Rira and the dog. Dr Lynd was talking all the time.
    ‘They are rude because Uhuru is coming – even the best of them is changing.’
    He wanted to tell her about the dog but somehow found it difficult. He knew he ought to have done something. What if Karanja had been touched by the dog? As the Administrative Secretary, he was supposed to deal with staff–worker relations; and he had received a number of complaints about Dr Lynd’s dog from the secretary of the Kenya Civil Servants’ Union (Githima branch). They had now come into a big tree-nursery surrounded by a wire fence. They sat down on a grassy part. He wanted to tell her the truth – but he would have to tell her about his own paralysis – how he had stood fascinated by an anticipation of blood.
    ‘Actually, it was not the boy’s fault …’ he stared. ‘I saw the dog run towards them.’
    Like many other Europeans in Kenya, Thompson had a thing about pets, especially dogs. A year ago he had taken Margery to Nairobi to see
Annie Get Your Gun
staged at the National Theatre by the City Players. He had never been to that theatre before – for nothing really ever happened there – he always went to the Donovan Maule Theatre Club. The road from Githima to Nairobi passed through the countryside. It was very dark. Suddenly the headlights caught a dog about to cross the road. Thompson could have braked, slowed down or horned. He had enough time and distance. But he held on the wheel. He did not want to kill the dog and yet he knew he was going to drive into it. He was glued to the seat – fearing the inevitable. Suddenly there was a scream. Thompson’s energy came back. He braked to a stop and opened the door and went out, taking a pocket torch. He went back a few yards; there was no dog anywhere. He looked on either side of the road but saw no sign of the dog – not even a trail of blood. Yet he had heard the thud and the scream. Back in the car, he foundMargery quietly weeping. And to his surprise, he too was shaking and could not comfort her. ‘Perhaps it’s under the car,’ she said. He went out again and carefully peered under the car. There was nothing. He drove away sadly; it was as if he had murdered a man.
    He had relived the chilling scene the moment he saw the bull-mastiff run towards Karanja; the incident was still close to the skin as he tried to tell Dr Lynd what had happened – the difficulty lay in separating what had occurred outside his office on the grass – only tell her that – from what had gone on inside him.
    To his surprise and